Being told you are 'no chance' and should give up isn't a 'realistic assessment' of the profession. Particularly when you don't know anything about his attitude towards his objective to be a journalist, nor his writing quality.

Cricket journalism may be tough to get into (and if so, succeed in), but there are many other professions far tougher.

Plus, no where in his post did he say he wanted to be a Sambit Bal or Harsha Bhogle and make lots of money from this. Those situations are rare, but being a cricket journalist is hardly climbing Everest with one leg.

Yeah, perhaps that's a bit harsh but I think it's necessary for kids to be given a realistic assessment of the landscape. The fact is journalism is brutally hard to break into and that'll get exponentially harder in the future with the decline of traditional media. If he knows all this and is still willing to do everything to get there then he certainly deserves every chance possible.

I would have thought that with internet websites as news mediums increasing in popularity (and numbers), the chances to make a career in journalism is actually increasing.

I wouldn't think so, certainly not enough to make a career and living out of (aside from a few). Happy to be proven wrong and not really talking from any first hand experience but all the sackings at papers like The Age have been very worrying.

On a side note it looks like they're going to start charging for The Age site.

Yeah, of course. Incidentally I reckon The Age have some of the best online ads Ive seen. They had that Telstra one not long ago that was integrated so well, also the Green Macbook one iirc. Was very impressed.